Traveling North

Thirty years have passed yet in my mind it is always you, with Jimmy still a tiny baby in your arms that I still see. I remember your hair, playing with the breeze, well below your shoulders, in the wind it does tease. At times your back, and then in front, now the baby, and places I could not see. Silver like your voice, are the sling backs on your feet, we were visiting Fort Monroe, overlooking the sea. The breeze still playing with you, swings a beige skirt up past your knees. A ruffled white blouse of lace and silk draws my eyes down your chest and past secrets I still could see. Now to lunch, near the office we did stroll, my work mates ran to the window to see the beauty whose virtues I had extolled. They looked on in wondering how it was that I'm the one who is with you. Your soft voice sings in speaking, its slight accent I remember well. Do your eyes still sparkle with a hidden smile I knew so well?

For many weeks, I was blessed to know you, the total, two score they were, but then from overseas your husband did return, now there was time for me no more, Still for you my heart did yearn. I could not forget you, and as years did pass, society and technology changed. I always hooped that I might find you at last.

I bounced from one love to another, never happy and never feeling at home, my taste in women, my love, would have looks much like your own. Like you The woman I sought was oriental, just under five foot two. So many like you had long shiny black hair, holding rainbows in the light. I still remembered how waves of hair, much like black silk would frame your brown eyes, and reflect the sky’s blue lights.

Now in my fifth relationship, and once also married, on the Internet my eye's did terry. I looked for you, both under your name, and that of your husband. In the Cascades where you said was his home, I had several hits. I paid for information from one site and by this point I could not retreat so I made good use of it's clues.

I’ve found a likely address, with property taxes paid. But for the fear in my mind, I was ready to go, there was no reason for me to stay, no job, no life. I need to at least see you, if I can overcome my fears. I know not what I may find, I had heard that your husband had been gone now for several years. So North to the Emerald city I now travel, the Coast Starlight is my train. As i watched landscape pass, from tunes on my laptop I played this long remembered song.

Train Song (Vashti Bunyan/Alastair Clayre ©MCPS) released in 1966 by Columbia (EMI)

Traveling north, traveling north to find you Train wheels beating, the wind in my eyes Don't even know what I'll say when I find you Call out your name love, don’t be surprised It's so many miles and so long since I've met you Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you But suddenly now I know where I belong It's many hundred miles and it won't be long It won't be long It won't be long It won't ... be long Nothing at all in my head to say to you Only the beat of the train I'm on Nothing I've learn't all my life on the way to you Only our love that's over and gone It's so many miles and so long since I've met you Don't even know what I'll find when I get to you But suddenly now I know where I belong It's many hundred miles and it won't be long It won't be long It won't be long It won't ... be long

My arrival was unanticipated, my appearance over the years has changed, when you came to the door you did not recognize me, so you asked me my name. I gave my new one, the name I had always known, and than told you that you had known me and said the name that you would know.

At first I saw the light in your eyes flash brightly, a happy smile turned your lips, but than as you viewed me, chilly became your style.

Expressively you motioned, telling me what I could do. You had loved the man that was no longer I, and for you no longer could that love be true. With some disdain you told me to go. As I rode back south, in sorrow did I play the flip side of the song with which I had came.

Love Song (Vashti Bunyan/Alastair Clayre ©MCPS) released in 1966 by Columbia (EMI)

I love your eyes when you look away Thinking somewhere else of what ought to be When they're suddenly blue for a moment of time Then the color goes when you look at me I love your hands as a part of you As they write a word just by staying still When you talk they move, painting what you say So I understand more than words can tell I love your hair in the dark it's soft In the light it moves, red and green are brown All the time it takes for a night to pass And a lifetime grows as the day comes down I love you now as you don't love me I can't let you know you're too far away But I wonder now just what did you see When you looked at me in that loveless way